ONCE a message in a bottle could lead the way to friendships across the water but now Whitefield nursery children have discovered a new way to make European pen pals - balloon mail.

The latest way of making friends in far away lands came about when 20 children from the Blue Skies Montessori nursery released a balloon each for Red Nose day last month.

The kids from the nursery, on Frankton Road, were amazed when replies from across Europe started flooding in.

Phone calls and letters came from countries as far afield as Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.

Nursery manager Karin McKenzie said: "We sent out the balloons with the name, address and phone number of the nursery and each child's name and weren't really expecting any replies - it was just really a bit of fun for the kids. We thought if we do receive replies, it would be from around England and we could show the kids on a map just how far their balloon had gone."

One balloon in particular went much further than expected - a whopping 892 miles from Whitefield to Munich, the capital of beer. And the winning balloon, named Romeo after it's four-year-old owner, was picked up by a German family, the Murr's, washed up on a beach.

The three Murr children, Valentine, two, Hannah, five, and Lucia, seven, sent Romeo a reply with photographs of the family and, pictures they had drawn.

The proud youngster cannot believe just how far his balloon travelled.

He said: "It went all the way over the water. That's so cool."

Pupils are now keeping their fingers crossed that their balloon might get even further.

Karin said: "The European people are so sweet, making the effort.

"We are going to start writing back and get the children to send pictures and photos of themselves. You never know some of them could gain life-long friends out of this - people they would never have otherwise met."

She added: "The kids are loving waiting on what will turn up in the post next, or who will call on the phone, but really it's hard for them to understand how the balloons went so far, but it is a good lesson about the world."